Laurinburg, North Carolina
1725 6 April 1965
“What is this stuff?” General Hanrahan asked, gesturing out the window of the olive-drab Chevrolet sedan at tiny green buds sprouting through the earth in the fields on both sides of the dirt road.
“Tobacco?” Captain Zabrewski guessed from the front seat.
“Maybe soybeans,” Chaplain (Lt. Col.) T. Wilson Martin suggested. “They grow a lot of soybeans in North Carolina.”
“Not a bad-looking farm,” Zabrewski said, and then the tone of his voice changed. “Check out the guy on the tractor at three o’clock.”
All eyes moved to the left off the highway. At the far end of the field was a man riding a very large tractor.
They reached the house several minutes later. It was a rambling structure, mostly of concrete block construction but with additions of frame. It was neatly painted, and there was a neatly trimmed lawn running the length of the covered porch.
There were three barns, one of which looked as if it was about to fall down, the other two in much better shape.
Tony, General Hanrahan’s driver, stopped the car on a concrete pad, large enough for half a dozen cars, in front of the house. Hanrahan was out of the car before Tony could open it for him.
Hanrahan walked briskly up the three steps to the porch and rang the bell. Chaplain Martin and Captain Zabrewski came after him as soon as they could. Sergeant Tony Calzazzo, the driver, looked indecisive for a moment, then leaned on the fender of the staff car.
There was no answer to the doorbell.
Without realizing that he was doing it, Hanrahan made a hand signal ordering flankers forward left and right. Captain Zabrewski immediately dropped off the porch and started to move around the house to the left. After a moment’s hesitation, Chaplain Martin started to do the same.
“Heads up,” Sergeant Calzazzo called softly.
Hanrahan turned and saw the tractor that had been in the far side of the field. It was now approaching the house.
Hanrahan walked off the porch onto the concrete pad and waited for the tractor driver to appear. Without really thinking about it, Chaplain Martin took up a position beside him, and Zabrewski and Calzazzo took up positions behind them. Calazzo came to the position of Parade Rest.
The tractor driver was a tall, lithe man in washed-nearly-white blue jeans and a light blue shirt. He had a straw cowboy hat on his head.
He stopped the tractor, looked at the four men, shut off the tractor, and crawled down from it.
“Mr. Withers?” Hanrahan asked.
The man nodded.
“My name is Hanrahan, Mr. Withers—”
“I know who you are, General,” the man said. “There’s a picture of you and Clarence on the mantel—when you handed him his flash when he came out of Camp Mackall.”
The flash is the embroidered insignia of the fully qualified Special Forces soldier, worn on the green beret.
“Yes, sir,” Hanrahan said. “Mr. Withers—”
“Why don’t we go in the house?” Withers said. “I suspect I’m going to need a drink.”
“Mr. Withers,” Chaplain Martin said, “I’m Chaplain Martin. . . .”
“I was in the Army,” Withers said. “I know a chaplain when I see one.”
He walked up the stairs to his porch, then opened the unlocked door and held it, motioning them all to enter. When they had, he followed them inside.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” he asked. “Let’s have it.”
“About as bad as it gets, Mr. Withers,” Hanrahan said.
“I didn’t think they’d send a general out here to tell me Clarence broke his leg, or got shot,” Withers said.
He walked away from them, into the house, and returned almost immediately with a bottle of Wild Turkey bourbon and a stack of short squat glasses.
“You hold the glasses, Sergeant,” he said to Tony Calzazzo, “and I’ll pour.”
“Yes, sir,” Tony said.
Very soon everyone had a glass of whiskey.
“If you’re a teetotaler, Chaplain,” Withers said. “You don’t have to drink that.”
“I’m not a teetotaler,” Chaplain Martin said simply.
“Clarence bought this out at Fort Bragg,” Withers said, tapping the Wild Turkey. “My daddy taught me to drink good whiskey, and I taught Clarence, and he always brought me a couple of bottles when he came home. This is the last one. I was going to save it until he came home. Now I don’t have to, right?”
“It looks that way, Mr. Withers,” Hanrahan said.
He drained his whiskey glass.
“Goddamn, I’m going to miss him,” Withers said. “He was a good boy, and his mama and I were so proud of him.”
“You had every right to be,” Hanrahan said. He raised his glass. “Gentlemen, I give you Sergeant First Class Clarence Withers.”
He drained his glass, and the others followed suit.
"Did you know him, General? I mean, really know him, aside from giving him his flash?”
"Yes, I did,” Hanrahan said.
“We were in Vietnam together, Mr. Withers,” Captain Zabrewski said.
“No, sir, I did not,” Chaplain Martin said.
“I saw him around,” Sergeant Tony Calzazzo said. “But we wasn’t buddies, or anything like that.”
“So what happened to my boy, General? And when? And where? Hell, all he would say was that he was going someplace in Africa.”
“Just before we came out, Mr. Withers, I had a telephone call telling me there had been word from Africa—”
“Where in Africa?” Withers interrupted.
“Mr. Withers, your son was on a classified assignment,” Hanrahan said.
Goddamn it, I’m not going to tell this man—he doesn’t have the need-to-know.
“He told me that,” Withers said.
“What he was doing was advising the Congolese,” Hanrahan said. “He was with a small detachment of Congolese soldiers, and they were apparently run over—”
“Apparently? Run over by who?”
“We lost radio contact with the detachment at 1530 Congo time—that would be ten-thirty this morning, here. There’s a five-hour difference. They anticipated an attack, and there apparently was one.”
“And no chance that he’s a prisoner?”
“The Simbas rarely take prisoners, Mr. Withers,” Hanrahan said. “I wouldn’t want to give you false hope.”
“The Simbas? That the bunch that was eating the white people in Stanleyville?”
“Yes,” Hanrahan said.
“You think they ate Clarence?”
“I think that’s very unlikely, Mr. Withers. We won’t know until we can get people on the ground where this happened. That won’t be until seven o’clock or so, tomorrow morning there. Two A.M. here.”
“How’d you get your information so quick?”
“We sent them there with the best communication equipment we have,” Hanrahan said.
“Satellite? You’re bouncing your communication off a satellite? ”
“Yes, sir. As a matter of fact, we are.”
“I think we should have some more details by three or four o’clock tomorrow morning,” Zabrewski said.
“Ain’t that a bitch?” Mr. Withers said. “Until I read in the papers what happened over there in the Congo, saw it on the TV, I thought savages eating people was something out of a comic book. Now I’m going to learn, bounced off a satellite, whether or not savages ate my son.”
“I don’t think we’ll learn that, Mr. Withers,” Hanrahan said.
“General, I don’t want to seem rude, but I’d rather you not be here when Clarence’s mama gets home. Not knowing is worse than knowing, where she’s concerned. I’ll try to break this to her gently. If you could call, don’t matter the hour, when you know something, I’d be grateful.”
“Of course, sir,” Hanrahan said. “The moment I get word, I’ll call you.”
“We going to get his body back?”
&n
bsp; “I think we will.”
“I don’t want his mama to even suspect they ate him, or part of him,” Mr. Withers said. “Sonofabitch. Excuse me, Chaplain.”
Chaplain Martin waved his hand, indicating no apology was necessary.
[ SIX ]
The Hotel du Lac
Costermansville, Kivu Province
Republic of the Congo
0445 7 April 1965
Lieutenant Jacques Portet, using a rubber prophylactic, bloused the legs of his Suit, Flying, Tropical Climates, around the top of his parachutist’s jump boots and then stood up and moved around to make sure that he had done so properly.
He looked up and saw his wife, who was in the bathroom in her underwear, looking thoughtfully at his reflected image in the medicine cabinet mirror.
“What are you thinking, baby?” he asked.
“You really want to know?”
He nodded.
“I came over here so I wouldn’t have to sit in the apartment in Fayetteville, not knowing what you were doing,” she said. “Now I’m here, and I don’t like knowing.”
“I’ll probably be back for supper, baby,” he said.
“Sure, you will.”
“Are you going to put some clothes on?” he asked. “Or are you going to breakfast like that?”
“Are you actually hungry?”
“If that’s a suggestion, baby, I don’t think we have time.”
“No. I really want to know. Are you actually hungry?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“I have no appetite at all for reasons I can’t imagine,” she said.
“You don’t have to go down there for breakfast, baby.”
“Yeah, I do,” she said.
[ SEVEN ]
3 Degrees 60 Minutes 52 Seconds South Latitude
28 Degrees 9 Minutes 15 Seconds East Longitude
(Above Outpost George)
0705 7 April 1965
The DeHavilland L-20 Beaver came in over the crest of the enormous grass-covered gently sloping hill and flew over the Outpost George dirt strip at five hundred feet.
“There’s a body down there,” Major Tomas said, quite unnecessarily; everybody had expected to see a body—in the rear baggage compartment of the Beaver was a Container, Zippered, Impermeable, Human Remains, known as a “body bag”—and everybody had seen one.
The Beaver was painted flat black, and bore no markings of any kind. Before Jean-Phillippe Portet had gone into business with the Gresham Investment Corporation and the Intercontinental Air Ltd. Boeing 707 had become available, Felter had thought it was going to be necessary to covertly insert the Beaver—and all the other aircraft—into the Congo from South Africa, and had ordered the paint job so that it could be “credibly denied” that the United States was supplying matériel of war to the Congo.
Although it had been decided by Colonel Supo—just about as soon as the Beaver had been reassembled in Stanleyville—to paint it in the camouflage pattern of the Congolese Air Force, and affix credible-looking but spurious Congolese registration numbers to it, it was still painted flat black. Aircraft paint, and paint-spraying equipment, was not available without raising questions. Both were scheduled to be on the next 707 supply flight, which was due possibly today, and more likely tomorrow.
No one saw—and everyone was looking hard—any bright little flashes that would mean someone was shooting at them. That meant one of two things: that no one was down there, or that there was someone down there smart enough to realize that it’s much easier to shoot up an airplane on the ground than one flying five hundred feet in the air.
Jack flew across Route Nationale Number 5, and everyone tried to see something in the bush on the other side of the road.
“It’s not Vietnam,” Lieutenant Colonel Dahdi opined, “but it’s close.”
“Yeah,” Major Tomas agreed. “But it’s easier to track people if they have to hack their way through something like that. And even if there are paths down there, there’s no way to hide footprints on them—they’re bound to be wet.”
Jack then dropped to two hundred feet and flew up and down Route 5 for about a mile in each direction.
One of the two trackers, both senior sergeants, got the attention of the other and pointed, with a grunt, to something he saw on the ground.
“With your permission, Colonel,” Jack said, “I will make one more pass, lower, over the strip, and then land.”
Supo, who was in the copilot’s seat, nodded.
Everybody looked hard again, and no one saw anything on the dirt strip that suggested it wouldn’t be usable. And everybody saw the body again. The head was separated from the torso, and so was one leg, from the knee down.
Jack put the Beaver into a steep turn, lined up with the runway, lowered the flaps, and retarded the throttle.
There was the sound of rounds being chambered in weapons, which was unnerving.
Jack touched down smoothly, but the runway was not smooth— crushed rock—and there was a loud roar from the undercarriage.
He kept his hand on the throttle until the point where he would no longer have runway or speed enough to take off again in a hurry, then rolled to the end of the strip and turned around.
He put his hand back on the throttle and picked up a little speed until he’d reached the “no-go” point, then retarded the throttle and taxied slowly to the far end of the strip. There he turned around again and taxied to the burned buildings about halfway down the field.
Everyone saw Sergeant First Class Clarence Withers’s head resting about two feet from his torso. A horde of flies feasted on the pooled, now coagulated, blood in which it lay.
No one said anything.
Jack stopped the airplane.
Father Lunsford opened the door and jumped out, followed by Doubting Thomas. Both were armed with the short version of the M-16 rifle. They ran for twenty feet or so in opposite directions, dropped to their bellies, and waited to return any hostile fire.
The two trackers got out of the Beaver next. They were armed with FN 7-mm automatic rifles, which they carried cradled in their arms like bird hunters.
Last to get out, via the front doors of the Beaver, were Jack Portet and Colonel Supo. Jack was armed with an FN automatic rifle and a .45 ACP in a shoulder holster. He stopped the moment his feet touched the ground and loaded a round in the chamber. Colonel Supo had a Browning 9-mm automatic pistol in a web holster. He didn’t take it from the holster.
After forty seconds—which seemed much longer—Father Lunsford stood up, and then Doubting Thomas. They walked to Withers’s body.
Jack was surprised to see Thomas take an aerosol can of insect spray from the pocket on the calf of his paratrooper’s camouflage trousers. He first sprayed the head of Withers’s corpse, then the body. Jack felt nauseous.
I suppose that’s not the first already-starting-to-decompose body he’s had to deal with.
Father walked to the rear door of the Beaver, climbed inside, and came out with the body bag.
Doubting Thomas was walking around the body, kicking at the grass with his boot. Then he started walking toward the burned buildings. He’d gone ten feet or so when he bent down and came up with a dog-tag chain. Then he looked farther, and finally found the two dog tags Withers had worn around his neck.
Father unfolded the body bag next to Withers’s body and then pulled the zipper down. Thomas trotted up, reached for Withers’s severed leg, and put it—not without effort; Withers had been a large, strong man—into the bag. Then, while he picked up the remaining leg of the torso, Father put his hands under Withers’s armpits and they gently picked the rest of him up and lowered it into the body bag. Then Thomas went to Withers’s head. He first closed the eyes, then gently pried the mouth open. He slid one of the dog tags into the mouth, picked up the head, and put it into the bag.
Then he closed the zipper.
“I deeply regret your sergeant’s death,” Colonel Supo said.
Lunsford
met his eyes but said nothing.
Doubting Thomas went to the Beaver and took out backpack radios and other field gear.
The two trackers, Jack saw in surprise, were taking off their camouflage jackets and then their boots. They rolled the trouser legs halfway up their calves, and then they slipped into their web gear, and finally they put their arms through the straps of the backpack radios.
“The decision is of course yours, Major Tomas,” Colonel Supo. “You may go with Sergeant First Jette and track the Simbas, or with Sergeant First Nambibi and try to find the men who were here.”
“I’ll go with Jette,” Thomas said without hesitation.
“Let’s check this place out first,” Lunsford said, and started to walk toward the burned-out buildings. Jack started after him, and then Colonel Supo, and finally Thomas.
The two trackers started to walk, barefoot, back and forth in an ever-expanding circle from Withers’s body bag toward Route Nationale Number 5.
When they reached the burned-out, concrete-block buildings, there was the smell of burned wood, and burned gasoline, and of something sweeter.
Lunsford first peered through the door, then stepped into the building as far as he could. The charred roof timbers kept him from going far.
“Well, he got some of them,” Lunsford said, and stepped out of the building.
Jack looked inside.
He saw the badly burned skull of one man, and then of another, and another, and finally of a fourth.
God, don’t let me get sick!
He heard Lunsford ask, “Could these be your men, Colonel?”
“I think my men would have been out there, their heads cut off, with Sergeant Withers,” Supo answered. “As a mark of contempt. These are probably the bodies of Simbas—it was easier to burn them than bury them.”
“Your call, Colonel,” Lunsford said. “What would you like to do now?”
Supo glanced at his watch.
“It’s eight forty-eight,” he said. “It will be nine, or later, when the reaction force gets here. I suggest there is nothing for us to do here, and therefore it would make sense to fly down Route Five until we meet the reaction force, tell them what he found here, and then return to Costermansville.”
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